


The Witch In The Woods

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Female Loki (Marvel), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 03:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16569107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: There was something missing. A gap in Thor’s life, like his chest had been cut open and his heart ripped out. A memory of tears falling onto his face and then an empty ache where his heart should have been. Something just beyond reach.And yet, Thor had his mother and father. His friends and his hammer. Everything was the way it always had been, even the wicked witch hidden within the woods who everyone had always warned him about.The woods that surrounded the castle. The woods that Thor would find some semblance of peace in, as if their quiet peace could at least soothe the gap within him. The woods that Thor still went hunting in, exploring deeper than would be wise.





	The Witch In The Woods

There was something missing. A gap in Thor’s life, like his chest had been cut open and his heart ripped out. A memory of tears falling onto his face and then an empty ache where his heart should have been. Something just beyond reach.

And yet, Thor had his mother and father. His friends and his hammer. Everything was the way it always had been, even the wicked witch hidden within the woods who everyone had always warned him about.

The woods that surrounded the castle. The woods that Thor would find some semblance of peace in, as if their quiet peace could at least soothe the gap within him. The woods that Thor still went hunting in, exploring deeper than would be wise.

Thor’s horse stumbled.

It was presumably because of the figure before them that had startled Thor as much as it had startled his horse. A figure in amongst the trees, bending down over a bleeding rabbit. The image was so macabre for a moment that Thor almost forgot that it was he who had wounded the rabbit, that he was further in the forest than he had intended to be merely to search for the fleeing creature, to finish his solitary hunt with a final victory. He almost forgot, for a moment, that he should be crying out in anger at the idea that someone might steal his kill.

The figure raised its head to meet his eyes and for a moment his breath was stolen away as if by a curse, torn from him as if it might never return. A face that seemed almost achingly familiar, so beautiful and delicate, looked up at him. Her dress was a rich green, the colour of leaves, the colour of her eyes. Long black hair framed pale skin, yellow flowers woven into a crown braided into her hair, the same yellow as the details of her dress. It made Thor think how she should be wearing a crown of real gold, as if she were a hidden princess of a lost realm there for him to find, to rescue, to take home.

The rabbit bounded away, wounds healed, restored to full health. All consideration of bringing it back to the castle had long since flown from Thor’s mind, his thoughts enchanted by the witch’s gaze, for he knew that was what the woman before him was. He had imagined someone older, someone uglier. He felt that he had been warned away from her all his life, yet she didn’t seem any older than he was himself.

His horse shifted. He dismounted, a swift and confident motion. He tore his focus from the witch, an act which took all of his strength, to tend to his steed. To consider its leg and the limp that would make the journey back to the castle a long one.

As if by magic, the witch was by his side, her fingers reaching past his to the horse’s leg. The warning was on the tip of his tongue, how his horse was as wild, as fleeting and as tempestuous as the storm. The warning stilled as the horse relaxed into the gentle stroke as if it knew the touch of those fine fingers as well as its master’s. A faint, almost imperceivable, green glow lingered around her hand and the horse’s pain ceased, the leg healed.

Thor grabbed at the witch’s arm before she could vanish, looking deep into her eyes as she stared at him, a startled look on her face. As if she were an innocent young maiden caught bathing, vulnerable and at his mercy. He wondered if she had ever met a man before, if she had ever spoken with one or if her entire life had been hidden away amongst the birds and the beasts of the forest.

He wasn’t afraid, despite all the tales he had heard. She had healed the rabbit and she had healed his horse. There was something more. Something in the line of her jaw, the sharpness of her cheekbones, the curve of her lips. Something deeper than beauty, something deeper than physical allure. He felt as if he had seen her face before, for all that he was certain they had never met. He never ventured this far into the woods. Maybe he had caught a glimpse once before, or maybe she had wandered through his dreams as witches were wont to do.

“Thank you,” he said, full of sincerity. She flinched back, as if chased away by his fierce gratitude. He raised her hand to his lips, her eyes following him. He wondered for a moment if she understood the Allspeak, if she was as wild as the creatures within the forest for all that she looked like the fairest maiden in all the land, her dress painfully elegant in its simplicity as it clung to her slender figure. 

As he rode away it felt as if he was leaving a part of himself in the glade with her, as if his heart was lost in amongst the trees. He told no one, knowing what they would say if he did, knowing they would suspect a wicked enchantment. He almost suspected it himself, but she had let him go with such ease, had barely acknowledged him, as if she merely lived to care for the animals within the forest, as if that was her kingdom.

He took to riding in the forest even more than he had before, seeking out the solitude of the winds whispering through the leaves, as if he was questing but at the end of his quest was a beautiful witch just beyond his grasp. Sometimes he would glance her, sometimes he would meet her eyes, until finally he stood once more before her, standing at the threshold of her simple cottage as she stared at him with surprised, wide eyes.

“You should not be here,” she said, her voice firm, the words running over Thor like treacle, covering every inch of his skin in her essence. 

“Why not?” Thor asked, a challenge because he always fought battles and issued challenges. He was a warrior as well as a prince. He tied his horse to a tree, though he doubted it would wander if he left it free. There was something about the witch that drew him in like an unstoppable force, something which seemed to work on the other creatures of the forest just as well. The horse would come to her if she called it. 

“Are you not afraid I will put a curse on you?” she asked, amusement almost gifting her voice with a hint of laughter that resonated through Thor’s bones.

“No,” Thor answered confidently, curious to find it to be the truth. He had never been afraid of anything, not even the idea of a witch beyond the boundaries of his understanding. He could not be afraid of her, even if she held power beyond his comprehension for he had never been gifted with magic.

“You healed my horse,” he paused to give her a look that could have almost been annoyed if it hadn’t been full of tender wonder, “You stole my dinner, I had to make do without rabbit.”

She smiled, “It was not your rabbit, it was its own self. I saved it.”

Thor could not argue with that. He smiled back, shivers running down his spine with the thrill of seeing such an expression on her face, at the fact that he had been the one to put it there. The idea that she smiled for him, that maybe she had only ever smiled for him, crept under his skin and infected him with a passionate desire that her smile would be for him more than anyone else in all the nine realms, as if she was a wild thing he stood any chance of taming. 

She missed him when he went, as if the sun had left. He felt as if he was leaving all that mattered behind him, the most precious being in the nine realms sitting amongst the flowers as she braided them into her hair. 

He returned, another trip to the forest for no real reason except the hope of meeting her again, his horse finding the trail to her cottage with ease as if it knew that there was nothing else on his mind. He sat, prince of the realm, on the floor as he watched her heal a bird with a broken wing, power spilling from her fingertips that he wished could caress his body rather than the poor bird.

“My name’s Thor,” he said, his voice feeling out of place amongst the spells of her cottage and the rustling rhythm of the leaves.

“I know,” she said, a strange look on her face as she gazed at him.

“What’s your name?” he asked, even though he was not the one who asked questions. 

“I don’t know,” the witch replied, “I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has a name,” Thor protested, “What do people call you if you don’t have a name?”

The witch looked at him, as if he was an odd curiosity. As if she wanted to bottle him up and keep him in a collection.

“Everyone calls me witch,” she answered simply, “The few that venture into my domain rarely dare ask for anything more.”

“And your family?” he asked.

“I have no family,” she answered serenely, “I have only myself, living here like this every day the same in these woods.”

Thor looked away in frustration, unsure if she was refusing him or if she was really so alone that there was no name. That she was so unconnected from the rest of the world that there was nothing except a descriptor when he might have chosen something more accurate than witch for all that she seemed not to mind it. He might have called her a sorceress or an enchantress, for she had surely bewitched and enchanted him even if no spells had been involved. He wanted to call her by endearments, to give her a title like princess, to lavish her with compliments. He rode home, his mind still with her.

He returned again, and again. Seeking her out like a quest, a brave knight seeking to rescue a princess. A prince smitten with a mysterious witch. His friends letting him journey alone even as they fretted, his father watching eternally with his one eye that saw far too much. His mother the only one to pause, to look him deep in the eyes and smile a sad smile of support, a kiss on the cheek to speed him on his way.

She let him into her world, softly submitting to his invasion as if he belonged in her woodlands as much as she did. He was quiet and gentle there, no longer a brash warrior but a lost man trying to fill the hole in his soul even though it wasn’t her, she was a part of what had been missing. A love that he needed more than anything, a love that would help him continue to breathe.

“You didn’t put a love spell on me, did you?” he asked idly as he watched her braid the beautiful yellow flowers into her hair.

“No,” she said, frowning as if she was testing the magic in the air. 

“Because I think I love you,” Thor continued, never one to hide secrets away. He spoke his feelings just as clearly as he showed them. A flaw that might annoy his parents, overly honest when some restraint might be more beneficial for ruling, but a fundamental part of who he was. He kept the words gentle though, the confession open so that she felt no need to flee, so she wouldn’t startle like a rabbit and vanish into the undergrowth.

She paused, her lips moving as if repeating his words, flowers falling from her fingers. There was a silence in which he hadn’t really expected her to respond in kind with a declaration of love though he still hoped. Her smile was at least sweet, with no sense of a rejection, so he leaned forward to kiss her.

He wondered if it was her first kiss. He wondered if he hadn’t kissed her before in his dreams, as her lips felt like coming home. He kissed her as if she could fix him, could heal what was missing inside, as if she held all the answers. As if he had spent his whole life searching for her only to stumble upon her by chance, as if fate had brought them to that moment of revolution. 

“There’s something missing,” he said as he pulled back, as if this was the real reason he had felt the need to chase after a fleeing rabbit when they first met, seeking out the answers to the emptiness inside, as if there was something drawing him to her beyond a desire to hold her body to his. She gazed at him, fear and intelligence sparkling within the greenest eyes he had ever seen, and he wanted to kiss her again. 

“A spell for forgetting,” she said, as if she could see it and Thor could have drowned in her voice. He felt like it was the voice that had sung him to sleep as a child, as if he had heard it in his dreams, as if it had always been there in the back of his mind. As if she was a part of him that had been severed and now they were reunited.

“Yes,” he answered breathlessly, wondering at what it could mean, “Yes, a spell. Can you lift it? Can you show me what it is I have forgotten, what it is I am missing?”

She tilted her head, looking up at him curiously and he was not afraid. He should have been, should have suspected her of attempting to bewitch him, but he knew he could trust her. It was as if this was fate, as if they were intertwined and bound. She would never harm him.

“You would have me cast a spell for nothing in return?” she asked, a glittering glimmer telling him that a kiss was not enough to buy her. Business and pleasure. 

“What is your price?” he asked, willing to pay all of the gold and all of the jewels he could find.

“A strand of your hair,” she replied and he nodded without hesitation, not even flinching as she plucked it then and there, taking it as her prize. Her hand lingered by his face, a soft caress that held affection and magic. He felt the realms shift, the memories return.

“My brother,” he whispered, “I have a brother. My brother is gone.”

He missed her, now that she had stepped back, the golden strand of hair still wound round her fingers. He wished that her fingers were in his hair rather than his hair in her hands. He had never felt such an intensity before, a longing to hold her close as if she was about to vanish away in a puff of smoke, disappear like dust. Just as he now missed his brother, ached with loneliness at the empty days spent without him by his side. 

“You had a brother,” she repeated, bringing the golden strand to her lips in a ghostly imitation of a kiss when she could have stepped forward and melted into his welcoming embrace.

“Yes,” he replied, “I had a brother.”

He closed his eyes, trying to remember. He remembered bits and pieces, fragments that couldn’t connect together into anything more than a disjointed and incomprehensible mess. The memory wasn’t whole, no clear vision of the man who had been his brother, no clear memory of a name even, just the calm certainty of his brother being the centre of his world. A touch, a glance, a relationship that would outlast the universe itself. He felt for a moment he could see his brother’s face, but then it was gone the moment his eyes opened, replaced by the witch’s and the only face he could think of was hers. Her green eyes, her smooth skin, her delicate lips. The magic that lurked behind the beauty of her flesh.

“Where is he? Take me to him.” he appealed to her, desperate now to know the truth now that the reality of his wound was apparent. “I’ll pay any price you want.”

She looked at him, a slight frown on her face. As if she was wondering. As if she was thinking. As if she was reaching for something hidden behind the veil of reality Thor lived in.

“A favour,” she said and Thor knew what favours witches asked. She would return years in the future to demand his firstborn, his queen crying as the baby was torn from her, her beautiful green eyes filled with pain when they should filled with nothing but joy. When he should gift her with nothing but joy. An innocent woman suffering because there had never been anything Thor would not do for his beloved brother. Because there was little he could do to refuse this woman before him, this witch who seemed to already own his soul even before they first met, as if she had always been the one he would find to seek out his brother. 

“Yes,” he answered, “You may have a favour,” as if he was enchanted by her. As if he had known her for all of eternity. As if he loved her more than anything else in the nine realms. As if he trusted her with his whole heart because she already possessed it.

She smiled, a sweet gesture that reminded Thor of something just beyond the boundaries of his memory. A sad smile as she closed her eyes, stepping away, reaching out with her magic.

“Jotenheim,” she answered with certainty, “Your brother is on Jotenheim.”

“Of course!” Their exclaimed, “Of course! That’s what happened. It all makes sense now.”

He gazed at her, before explaining, “When I was a baby my father went to war with Jotenheim. He won, and brought back the Casket of Ancient Winters as the spoils of war, until Laufey sneaked in to Asgard to steal it back. He must have stolen my brother at the same time, the greatest treasure Asgard has. My poor brother, I must save him. You must help me, I cannot do this alone.”

The witch paused, as if she was about to refuse, a hesitation that caught at Thor’s heart. The she nodded, as if it went against all common sense. As if she was as drawn to him as he was to her. As if whatever bound them went deeper than the roots of Yggdrasil. As if she too had questions she needed to know the answer too. As if those answers lay frozen on Jotenheim. 

“If you help me,” he continued, desperate, knowing that there must be a price because with witches there always had to be a price, “Then I will make you my Queen.”

It was an easy offer, a culmination of his own desire. Power and a marriage that made sense, just like his mother’s magic guided his father’s sword. The sort of offer a man bewitched would make, though had she enchanted him thusly she would have agreed without hesitation.

She did not. She drew back, her eyes searching his. Green meeting blue.

“I was never meant to rule alone,” he said, the truth though he had not truly known it until he spoke the words, “I was always supposed to be guided by others wiser than me. By my brother, who I must find. By you, who I have found and who can deliver my brother to me.”

“One advisor is enough,” she whispered, “I am nothing but a witch without a past.”

“I have always been greedy,” Thor said, his fingers stroking through hair, avoiding the flowers still braided in it, imagining a crown of real gold sitting it its place, “And foolish enough that I need more wisdom than most.”

Her hand shook as she raised it to his face, and for a moment he thought she would kiss him. He hungered for that, for his lips to be on hers again, for her to be pressed against him. He leant forward to kiss her as the world shifted and a chill settled into his bones. The winds howled, freezing, bitter, cutting through Thor. Jotenheim spread out before him, snow and ice covering the lands beneath a deep layer of eternal winter. There was nothing but desolation.

And in the middle of the desolation, in the middle of the blizzard, in the middle of the snow, glowed the Casket of Ancient Winters. Not hidden away in a treasure vault, not displayed in a temple, but hovering lightly in the spell of a jötunn. Thor heard his witch gasp, a small sound as if there was something returning to her, as if she was understanding herself why they were standing in the freezing cold. As if she too were awakening from a dream-like state, memories returning with the swirling snow as they did to Thor.

The jötunn was no bigger than Thor. More slender, more graceful. Red eyes turning to meet Thor’s, eyes that he did and didn’t know. A face that was blue like any other jötunn’s might be but had all the same features that now came to Thor properly, the spell finally revealing itself as the truth settled into him. Thor knew, even though he had never known that form, that he had found his brother. The memories were still hazy, fractured and shattered as if they had been repaired and broken too many times. He gazed at that face that was more precious to him than all the treasure in Asgard even if it was a blue that should be unfamiliar.

There was a stillness that hung in the air like gently falling snow. Thor could feel tears in the back of his eyes, blurring his vision, making the witch and his brother blur into one for a moment. So much alike. The reason for his brother’s disappearance now clear, for his brother had always been a powerful sorcerer. Adopted, but still his brother. Still the centre of his world. 

“Your majesty,” the witch said.

“Loki,” Thor remembered, the name finally returning to him as he stood with his heart exposed, his brother and his witch. His Loki.

“Your majesty,” echoed his brother, gazing at him with sad eyes as if he had been disturbed from a deep sleep. As if the spell that had been broken had not only caught Thor when it tangled through the memories and removed all traces of his brother from his life.

“Come home,” Thor said, “I’m here to save you.”

“You promised me a favour,” the witch and the brother said together, and Thor understood why he had loved the witch from the moment he set eyes on her. He understood it all.

“No,” he said, hopelessly, knowing that he had promised and that it would be taken. Seeing the magic starting to weave around him, spilling forth into the world, capturing everything. A spell beyond all others, swirling about the three of them until there no longer were three. 

“Let me go,” Loki said simply, no longer two beings but the same face Thor remembered from childhood, the witch and the jötunn melding into one. No more the facets of who Loki was, split to keep himself hidden away from Thor’s desperate grasping, but whole as he had been when Thor had had a brother, when Asgard had had two princes. 

“Please,” Thor begged, even as he felt it unravel. Even as he felt the memories he had only just recovered start to shatter, broken like a mirror, the fragments distorting the faces that he tried to cling to. 

“Forget me,” Loki said quietly, “I never was your brother, I never was your love.”

“Brother or bride or both, I will love you,” Thor promised with all his might, magic wrapping itself around him, attempting to smother his resolve. It picked through him, removing his brother, removing the truth of the jötunn form that was his brother’s real face, removing the female guise that his brother slipped as easily into as any other. Removing his memories but never the desperate love that he held for all the forms Loki could wear, all the types of love that Thor could feel all culminating in the final fact that he loved Loki beyond all others, would never be able to forget the love that was buried deeper than any magic could dig, even if it meant he was left with nothing but the vague aching of a broken heart. 

Loki smiled sadly, green eyes beautiful, so close and so far. Close enough that Thor could feel his tears falling onto his face, but the distance behind his eyes stretching to where even the Bifrost could not go. “So you always say.” The words echoed through Thor’s mind, echoed through his dreams, would continue echoing forevermore even as the words lost their clarity and there was nothing but a resonating rumble of sorrow left to bury deep enough that it could fester.

There was something missing. A gap in Thor’s life, like his chest had been cut open and his heart ripped out. A memory of tears falling onto his face and then an empty ache where his heart should have been. Something just beyond reach.

And yet, Thor had his mother and father. His friends and his hammer. Everything was the way it always had been, even the wicked witch hidden within the woods who everyone had always warned him about.

The woods that surrounded the castle. The woods that Thor would find some semblance of peace in, as if their quiet peace could at least soothe the gap within him. The woods that Thor still went hunting in, exploring deeper than would be wise.

Thor’s horse stumbled.


End file.
